Memories
by Your Great Escape
Summary: A man and a woman in front of a bar. At the altar. As she lies on a hospital bed giving birth, he stands by her side. Memories of the Potters, a series of oneshots. Not chronological. LJ


Memories.

Alright, this is a series of one-shots, James and Lily's memories. There is no particular order, just random things. So, whenever I feel the need to write a one-shot, it will most likely go here. The first one is short. Bold is James' point of view, and italic is Lily's POV. Enjoy. I do not own Harry Potter.

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**I know Lily Evans very well. How could I not? I did, after all, basically stalk her for seven years. And the better you know someone, in my opinion, the better you know how to upset them. In fact, that was exactly what I had done. Sure, we had argued, as we did quite a bit these days. We were both stressed, what with work and all of that. As an employee at the Department of Mysteries, it was our main focus to find out everything we could about Voldemort. So far, things weren't going so well. I was staying at work late night after night, much to the annoyance of my girlfriend. That was what we had fought over. I had said some things I hadn't meant, and she had run off, angry at me. I shouldn't I have been surprised. Honestly, we've both been on edge, and I had been harsh. The memories of what I had said where enough to make me wince as I sat on the couch, hugging my knees to my chest.**

**I thought of how far we had come since we stopped hating each other somewhere in the middle of our seventh year at Hogwarts. We had started going out in April of that year, and when we graduated, we moved in together. I'm not going to lie; sometimes it wasn't exactly what I hoped for. It was hard, even, living with a girl who you could love and hate at the same time. But really, I did love her. But I had let her go. It was getting late, but in these dark times, it was hard not to wait up for her. The clock struck midnight. I was worried at this point, and there was no denying it. I had been staring out the window, waiting for her to appear at the gate, to no avail. It was fifteen past one when I decided to go out and find her.**

**I tried all her usual haunts along Diagon Alley, places we had gone when we felt like getting away from it all, where we had gotten drunk and come home and made love like it was going out of style. When I didn't find her anywhere, I started to really worry. I was afraid that someone had found her - a Death Eater, maybe, or even the Dark Lord himself.**

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_I left our house pretty angrily - it infuriated me the way he could act as if coming home at nine every night for a month was no big deal. I hated the way he wasn't around when I ate dinner, and I couldn't cry on his shoulder about the days' events, the new casualties. So when we argued, I left, intending on returning when I worried him enough to make him sorry. I headed over to the Leaky Cauldron, hiding among the crowd that was always there, drinking quite a few fire whiskeys. The guy next to me was checking me out, clearly, but I honestly didn't care. His name was Nick, and had I not been dating James, I might have gone home with him. As it was, he was an asshole anyways. I was about to leave for home, to go home and cry on Potter's shoulder as I always did when someone this close to me died. What he didn't know this time was just how close to me they were._

_Nick followed me towards the door, and before I could maneuver myself out of reach, he grabbed my wrist. I was jerked sharply backwards, spun to face the man. "Here, why don't we go for a walk?" I had enough experience with guys to know that this really meant, 'do you wanna go have sex with me now?' and refused. He insisted._

"_No," I answered, "I'm just gonna apparate back to my house."_

"_You can't apparate this drunk - you'll splinch yourself," he insisted, and I tried to jerk away and flee. I couldn't, but as it was, I accidentally slammed my elbow into his gut. The bouncer showed up to lecture me - I don't really remember what happened after that, but James was there, leading me out of the bar._

_Once we were back in the alley, I broke away from him, trying to find a way to contact my friend Kim from school. She would let me come home with her for the night, until I could stand to face James in the morning - I didn't think I was capable of facing him drunk. Or hungover, for that matter. He was too smart for me. he knew what was good for me and what I wanted, and I couldn't stand to be told what I needed. I couldn't stand knowing that he was right. "Lily, let me take you home," he urged, but I refused to give in. I found myself too drunk to walk straight, leaning against the outside of a brick building, a hand pressed over my eyes. I couldn't do this. "What happened?" he asked, and I prayed that I wouldn't break down right here._

_It was too late for that already. As I stayed there, I shook my head. "Nothing." It was the only answer I could give, but the way my voice broke contradicted the actual statement._

"_Tell me." His voice was very soft and very close, but he wasn't touching me. I shook my head, feeling the hot tears roll down my cheeks. I had always been taught that it was a shameful thing to cry, and I felt only shame and guilt for doing so now. James, however, seemed to understand. Instead of the harsh words I had been expecting, there were only soothing, comforting sounds, soft whispers in my ear, though I couldn't discern what the words were._

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**Frankly, I was surprised, shocked, even, when Lily threw herself into my arms. Usually, when we fought, she tried to avoid any kind of physical contact whatsoever for as long as possible. But we always made up in the end. I guess tonight, though, the end was sooner. We stood outside the Leaky Cauldron for quite a while, her in my arms, me staring over her shoulder up into the stars. Lily. Why did she have to do this to herself, I thought? It wasn't long after this that she got sick. I tried to help her through it, but when someone's drunk, there's not much you can do about anything they do. But when she was done, I took her home, cradling her against my shoulder. I tucked her into bed and kissed her goodnight. I wasn't sure how much she remembered in the morning.**

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Hope you all enjoyed it. Review for me, please.


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